You know how it goes: buy a child the most expensive toy in the store and they are inevitably going to get the most joy out of the box it came in. My three year old could spend an entire afternoon with an assortment of boxes and be perfectly content. As anyone with a small child knows, a cold and rainy afternoon can become absolute nirvana with the right amount of empty boxes. However if you’re anything like me, your “drawing skills” are somewhat, shall we say, limited. My daughter can’t seem to look past the fact that the egg carton is, in fact, an egg carton. My black marker scribbles don’t help matters, either. Box Play for kids is THE answer for making your gifts this year do double duty. Rather than discard the empty boxes, the kitschy stickers from Box Play for kids turns the containers themselves into toys all their own. Created by a husband and wife team of designers who have specialized in package design, Box Play for kids creates a world where imagination and eco-consciousness skip hand in hand through the holidays. My personal favorite are the bowling pin stickers for paper towel rolls. Don’t feel you need to have kids to enjoy this either. Get one for yourself and find your recycling bin all of a sudden full of responsibility.

Box Play for kids is giving away one music set to one lucky winner. To enter to win, please answer the following question by January 6th.

What was your favorite childhood toy?

Please begin checking the winners box on January 12, 2012 to see if you’ve won. Good luck!

My favorite childhood toy was a big huge tree that had fallen over. My brother and I used to pretend it was a horse, train, airplane, the big flying dog thing from “The Never Ending Story”. Hours and hours of fun, and it is still there!!!

My dad made a yellow rubber push duck that flaps his leather wings as he moves along. It belongs to my nephew now and I love that it is one of this favorites too! It’s also great to see a toy last for more than a day, both in terms of staying together and continuing to hold a place in a child’s imagination.

I loved my Cabbage Patch doll. I remember being three and making my first purchase ever. With the spare change I had managed to get in my hands I bought some clothes for my doll at my neighbor’s garage sale. I felt so grown up making that purchase.

Hands down got to be Lego. It is the ultimate gender neutral toy. And that meant a lot for my cash-strapped parents who already had a 3 year old boy when this little girl came into the picture! It is a toy that is so simple, and yet has endless possibilities, something that let my imagination run wild.

I loved my barbie dolls. My brother loved his action figures, and we used to play them together complete with a self-constructed “doll house” made from connecting building blocks. In retrospect, pretty hilarious because barbie dolls are nearly double the height of most action figures…

My favorite toy…well my Pat a Burp came everywhere with me..I never thought of her as a toy..she was my baby..and the fact that you could pat her back and she burped made it all the better. Looking back at photos of me, I was two in 1968 and that is when "she" arrived..every photo of me growing up there is Pat a Burp..somewhere in the photo. Today, she sits on my bed…a little worse for wear..but, she is 44+ years old…

My sister took me to the zoo to see white bengal tigers and bought me a small white tiger plush there. I took it everywhere and loved it fiercely even after several dog chewings left it with one mangled eye. Eventually my mother threw it out to my great protests.

My favourite toy was a paper doll. It was given to me by my cousin which was made and past down to her by her sister. It comes with many paper costume which I can use to dress it up. I love it so much that I played with almost every day!

My favorite childhood toy was a king size lime green bed spread. The bed spread transformed ordinary spaces into caves, castles, forts, and hammocks. It is still around and will likely be used by my kids to create their imaginary lands.